Passenger safety restraint with pretensioner

Details Passenger safety restraint with pretensioner Passenger safety restraint with pretensioner

1996-06-13

1997-12-16

Ellis, Christopher P.

Land vehicles

Wheeled

Attachment

297478, B60R 2100

Patent

active

056976429

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a passenger safety restraint including a pretensioner and especially to indication of the activated state of a pretensioner.
In safety restraint systems of passenger vehicles, it is well known to provide a seat belt for the occupant of each seat and to provide such seat belts with belt webbing retractors which provide neat partial storage of the belt webbing when not in use. Such retractors normally provide a light rewinding spring and webbing or reel locking which is operable in emergency. The light rewinding spring is designed primarily for passenger comfort and for crash conditions it has been proposed to include not only means to cause locking of the reel or webbing but an additional webbing tensioning feature or pretensioner to ensure that a seat belt is drawn more tightly about the occupant. Such a seat belt pretensioner may for example be designed to shorten one of the belt anchorages or to rotate the webbing reel of the respective retractor in a belt tightening direction, such action being initiated by means which senses a crash condition. A pretensioner may be actuated by any suitable means and more particularly a releasable compressed spring or a pyrotechnic device may be employed.
One possible problem with such a pretensioner is that it is usually concealed from normal view and any activation without the knowledge of the vehicle owner can result in the pretensioning feature not being available for a subsequent crash condition and the object of the present invention is to provide means to give an immediate and possibly a sustained indication that such activation has occurred so that resetting or servicing may be effected at the earliest opportunity.
According to the invention there is provided a vehicle passenger safety restraint including a seat belt deployable to resist movement of an occupant from a desired position in a seat in the event of a crash and including pretensioner means operable to release energy to tighten the seat belt at an early stage of the crash and characterised by pneumatically operable indication means for providing an indication of said pretensioner means having operated.
In a case where the pretensioner is operable by a pyrotechnic device or compressed gas storage device gas under pressure which is produced or released may be used to operate audible or visible indication means.


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order that the invention may be more clearly understood and readily carried into effect the same will now be further described by way of examples with reference to the accompanying drawings of which:
FIG.1, illustrates an emergency locking safety belt webbing retractor with a pretensioner
FIG. 2, illustrates part of a retractor in accordance with FIG. 1 incorporating audible indication
FIG. 3, illustrates part of a retractor in accordance with FIG. 1 incorporating audible indication
FIG. 4a and FIG. 4b, illustrate a pneumatic indication device and
FIG. 5, illustrate an alternative pneumatic indication device.


DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Referring to FIG. 1, this illustrates in diagrammatic form a typical passenger vehicle front seat belt emergency locking retractor 1 for the webbing 2 of the seat belt. Usually, such a retractor is located on or within the vehicle `B` post and may additionally incorporate a pyrotechnic pretensioner device for rapidly winding the reel to tighten the webbing in the early stages of the onset of crash conditions. Such conditions are usually sensed by means for detecting more than normal vehicle deceleration. The pretensioner as indicated in FIG. 1 comprises a piston 3 and cylinder 4 arrangement, the piston being connected via a flexible cable 5 which is wound on a spool rotatably engageable with the webbing reel. For the purposes of the present invention the outer end 6 of the cylinder 4 is fitted with an end cap 7 provided with a small connection piece 8 to which communication with the interior of the cylinder on the `atmospheric` side of the piston 3.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4345665 (1982-08-01), Fohl
patent: 4359237 (1982-11-01), Gavagan et al.
patent: 4451062 (1984-05-01), Ziv
patent: 4592571 (1986-06-01), Baumann et al.

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